By week three, I was familiar with the ins and outs of the Dock Job.
All things considered, it is a very cush job. Not to mention, I really like it!
Even on days when it’s pouring rain and I’m fully suited up in swishy pants, rubber boots and waterproof hat (well, I don’t wear the hat, it just doesn’t feel right), it’s fun to be on the radio, directing folks and making sure our tours leave on time.
The machine works like this:
4 Berths (Docks) and a cruise ship on each.
One ticket taker at our boat. This person communicates to our boat via radio. The rest of us communicate with the ticket taker and update her with our final numbers, if we have a wheelchair coming who needs assistance, or if our numbers change).
The “Front Person” communicates with the Shore Excursion Manager from the ship= Shore Ex for short. They come off the ships wearing uniform colors or holding signs so we know who is in charge. We ask them for our final count, then once we’ve loaded everyone onto our boat, we confirm how many passengers we have and ask for the Green Light. Until the Shore Ex says we can leave, we have to wait it out. It’s always our goal to leave on time, but often the passengers get stuck on the ship trying to make it out of the bottleneck exit, or we have stragglers who wait until the last minute.
After we’ve boarded our tour and sent it off, we ask the Shore Ex if they need more of our promotional materials (rack cards) and when they want to settle. Settling just means getting our money. We count up our tickets, twice, fill out our settlement sheet (which some ships sign and others don’t, as they give us their own copies). Ultimately, the tickets are our form of payment. We can’t get paid by the cruise ships for our tours if we don’t have proof that the passengers came with us. If we lose those tickets, then we can’t get our dollahs so I had to learn the hard way to put the tickets in my pocket and zip them up because the wind is so extreme.
Usually we have an elbow, who is the person that stands somewhere in between the cruise ship and our boat. They help guide the passengers on their way.
We do what we can to bring our boat as close to the cruise ship, so that we don’t have to drive passengers or make them walk very far.
Having said that, if we have a combo tour (half of our tour passengers are from Star Princess, the other half are from the Volendam) then we have to meet somewhere in the middle and ensure that everyone can get there on time. That’s when we reach out to a bus company if necessary, or we use our 8 passenger white van to take a few trips.
Our van is lovingly referred to as Bertha, across the board, and no one likes driving her. She is a white, ’94 Ford and a dazzle of a beast. She was born before Bluetooth or Wifi, before Dial-Up or Ariana Grande. She gets the job done but when you ride over a bump, you feel it.
When we come in every morning, there is a game plan on the table and it will say “Natalie- Ruby Front” or “Natalie- Van Driver at 2.” On busy days, there are 6 of us out there in bright green, making sure everyone get’s there on time. It’s quite an efficient system we have going, but we make our mistakes from time to time. When I am sending folks over from one dock to the next, assuming it’s a walkable distance and we don’t have to drive them, I make sure to remember the last garment of clothing on the last person I sent over. I can’t keep count of our total, so I usually ask the ticket person how many we have once we’re 10 minutes from departure. I will also let them when I’ve sent over what seems to be the last group, “let me know your count when you receive the lady in the pink sweater.” At that time, if we have all 50 on board from the Ruby, then I ask the Shore Ex for the Green Light at 50 and he/she gives us the all-clear!
If there’s one job I would never want, it would be to work as the Shore Ex. They have to deal with the grumps coming off the ships, the confused people who are antsy to find their tour signs even if they are there two hours before their tour picks them up, and then they have to deal with us, the companies who just want to know our numbers and if we are all set at our total count. Then we have days when other tours cancel for weather and the tourists try to jump on our tours last minute, this changes our total count and can add to the last minute flurry to get our tour off on time.
When we are done loading our tours, we typically have down time to run and get coffee or eat a quick lunch. It can be very relaxed but I push myself to get up and help with loading the supply bins near the boats, taking out trash, preparing for the next day or running errands as they come up.
You get to know the cruise ships really fast, you sort of feel a relationship with the boat itself shaped by how you feel about their typical tourist, their Shore Exs, and how on time they are getting their passengers off the ship.
We all have our favorites and least favorites. I am NOT a fan of the Princess Ships because they have a lot of tourists who take pictures excessively (read: Asians). I have no problem with Asians until they are pointing a camera at my face as I hold up my sign. If I were wearing a Vegas get-up then I could understand but I’m wearing a rain coat and holding a small plastic sign. Whenever a zoom lens is pointed at me, I make a face of absolute death. However, I love the Shore Ex’s on the Ruby Princess, that one may be my favorite.
The Celebrity ships think they are a big deal.
The Norwegian ships are pretty relaxed, I think. They are painted with funny “tramp stamps” we call them, but I like the designs because they are very unique compared to the other ships that all resemble bathtubs (especially the Ruby).
You also get to have a relationship with PORT SECURITY. They’re an interesting group of folks running around in orange and green vests. They manage the crosswalks with stop signs and they also manage traffic on the docks. Driving Bertha on the dock, you have to go 5 miles an hour and have someone there to back you up EVERY TIME YOU PARK or you get in trouble by the Port Security. There are HARBOR MASTERS who walk around with yellow and blue vests and they are, well, hilarious. They take their jobs very seriously and walk with authority and power, keeping as all safe and mostly being ready to call us out at any moment.
There’s nothing about my job that is especially new. It’s a well-oiled machine. There seem to be good reasons for every method and I can’t see much room for improvement. Some of the information is confusing, but it makes sense once you know the ships, the docks and you’ve done each job a few times.
OTHER DOCK STAFF:
Some are nice, some are not nice. In theory we’re each other’s competition. But the thing is, most people walk off those cruise ships with their tickets already purchased so there’s no sense in bumping elbows trying to get your folks on board.
KIOSK FOLKS: They are the worst. They’ve been doing this for years and know just what to say in each situation. Silence is their enemy, cheesy jokes their friends. They ask that you stand at least 5 feet from their booths so they can sell to tourists who haven’t purchased yet. We are not allowed to sell to tourists once they disembark their ships, so as to protect the sales opportunities for the kiosk folks.
I don’t have a lot of respect for these people because I’ve seen most of them completely blitzed and tongue-tied at the bars. They are in their 40s and 50s and seem directionless to me. I don’t like dealing with them much but if you stay out of their way it’s not a big deal. To me, it’s the most annoying on dock 4 because of the way it’s set-up: you have to stand and listen to them sell their products and it’s annoying as hell!
FISHERMEN: Apparently these folks can be the worst. They are territorial over their docks and aren’t nice to the Shore Excursion Reps like us.
JEWELRY STORES: We don’t like them. They pack up and leave the second the ships are gone. They don’t stay during the winter, they are complete tourist traps, nothing is local, and the people who work at the stores are often sleazy and weird. They might try to get randy with you at the bar, but regardless, what they do is a complete crock because they try to sell Tacori to people coming to Alaska. If you know Southeast Alaska, you know that you should buy fish, eat fish and buy an “I Love AK” sweatshirt if you must.. But diamonds? We don’t harvest diamonds here. See how I’m already taking it upon myself to identify with Alaska.
I can tell that I like it here 🙂